


Wicked Games

by MegumitheGreat



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Illusions, M/M, Nightmares, One Shot, Suffering, Torture, mako poisoning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-09
Updated: 2020-05-09
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:21:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24092773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MegumitheGreat/pseuds/MegumitheGreat
Summary: Nibelheim has been destroyed, yet Zack finds himself somewhere in the reactor.  Sephiroth is dead...isn't he?PLEASE HEED THE WARNINGS.
Relationships: Sephiroth/Cloud Strife, Zack Fair/Cloud Strife
Comments: 4
Kudos: 49





	Wicked Games

**Author's Note:**

> This fic has been inspired by Wicked Games (Weeknd), Sephiroth being particular seductive in the remake, and the a number of doujins that view Sephiroth as someone who wants to control everything about Cloud. Now, now--Sephiroth was actually a sweetheart before Nibelheim...but the hyperfixation and his hatred for everyone and everything...especially for the two that fought him and killed him...
> 
> **Please beware of the warnings.**

Zack woke up to find that he had been tied to a wooden chair while Cloud sat before him on a plush couch. His eyes were glowing blue-green, and he seemed under the influence of something. As his mind cleared and a dull throbbing in the back of his head returned, he realized that Cloud was suffering from mako poisoning. Still, there were piles of alcohol bottles around the coffee table and even what looked like needles scattered about. Cloud was wearing an old 1st Class uniform.

“Am…I dreaming?” Zack asked quietly. “I have to be…where the hell are we?”

The place, wherever it was, reeked of mako. It brought him back to the Reactor—wait, were they in the Reactor? Wasn’t it destroyed? No, it wasn’t that place. It was somewhere else that…was just dark and quiet. Wasn’t it? He couldn’t be sure about anything.

“Good to see you again, Cloud,” Sephiroth voice rumbled from the dark. He stepped around to the front of the couch, taking a seat next to Cloud and immediately leaning into him. “You’re suffering from mako poisoning? Hmph, I told you not to take so much of it. It’s that time again—the ruminating thoughts that my entire life was a lie and I have no one to express it to. No one…but you. Do you understand how infuriating it is? Well, you’re just a little grunt. I can’t expect you to understand much of anything.”

Zack watched his superior talk casually to Cloud like he was an old friend, but the way he looked at him and spoke made him feel otherwise. He was talking to him like he wasn’t a person. “What the hell are you saying to him?” he growled at Sephiroth. “It’s your fault this happened!” Sephiroth didn’t hear Zack cursing him. It was like Zack himself had been removed from the reality in front of him. “W-What the hell is happening?”

“You know, Cloud, I could help you. You’re nothing, but I can bring you the fame you want as a SOLDIER. You just have to let me take my frustrations out on you.”

“Se…phi…roth…?” Cloud babbled out.

“Hold on, what is going on?!” Zack questioned loudly again.

The mako poisoning that Cloud was suffering depressed all reaction to Sephiroth as he stood before him with his back turned to Zack. At first, he slapped him across the face with the back of his hand. In Cloud’s debilitated state, he hated seeing him not even register what he was doing—or going to do—to him. He grabbed him by his blond spiky hair that was still wet with mako. Wrenching his head back to look up at him, Sephiroth peered down into the eyes of the infantryman that had killed him.

“Even if you don’t love me like everyone else does, even if your only relation to me was a fluke, I want you to give me everything you have,” Sephiroth drawled. He gently rubbed Cloud’s lips with his gloved thumb before worming it into his mouth. “I want everything, Cloud. You, Mother, this Planet…for it is my birthright.” He pushed his thumb deeper and deeper into his mouth.

“Dammit, Sephiroth! Leave him alone!” Zack ordered him.

Sephiroth was clearly toying with both of them; he had to have known that Zack was sitting there helplessly behind him. And he pulled Cloud to just before him for whatever reason, dragging him by his neck and throwing him down like a piece of garbage. With his six-foot-long sword, he slashed away at Cloud’s clothes. He sliced into his skin, and the image of bright crimson coloring the pale porcelain skin underneath delighted him.

Zack only guessed what Sephiroth was planning to do. Since the man had snapped, he had caused the greatest destruction ever that had Shin-Ra’s name tagged to it. He had gotten a taste of torture after massacring the entire village and nearly killing Zack and Cloud. But what was this fixation on Cloud?

“Za…” Cloud uttered. Was he cognizant of where he was? No, he couldn’t be! He was sick from mako. But he was calling for his protector, wasn’t he?

“I’m right here, Cloud!” Zack frantically responded. “What the hell is going on? Why can’t I even break free?”

Sephiroth flipped the small and weak infantryman onto his stomach, petting his head and whispering sweetly to him that he was going to be one with him some day. He removed the shreds of his pants from him. Running his hand down the shape of his rear, grabbing him by the meaty muscle while holding him down; Sephiroth wasn’t particularly interested in any sort of intimacy. He had to admit that he was shocked that someone so insignificant could kill him, and it was that willpower that filled him with hate not just for all of humanity but for Cloud especially. He knew that he was crippled, unable to push him away and certainly too drugged up to run. Sephiroth had him right where he wanted him. That was when he glanced up at Zack. He stared him straight in his eyes with a growing smile.

“You’ve failed at becoming a hero,” he gently told him as if to mock him. “You can’t save anyone, and now this little one will suffer for your inadequacies.”

“Don’t you dare touch him!” Zack roared.

“Z-Za…” Cloud whined quietly.

Without another word, Sephiroth began to torture both men. He pinned Cloud down with his sword by stabbing through his hip. He knew that he couldn’t even crawl away in his state, but seeing that sword stick up out of him would hurt Zack far more than he had during their fight. Sephiroth pulled back on Cloud’s hair so that Zack could get a good look at the face of someone whose mind had been separated from his body.

“I’m going to take away what you cherish most,” Sephiroth taunted Zack.

The SOLDIER that was once revered as a hero had become something worse than a villain. He had turned into something scarier than any monster that Zack and Cloud had faced, yet he still had the face of someone who used to love the people he worked with. He traced his fingers down Cloud’s bare slashed back—over the gaping hole where he had stabbed him the first time and Cloud doubled-down on his wound to throw him into the mako below the reactor—to his rear.

“Does it hurt yet?” he asked his captive. “Neither of you can do anything but experience this pain over and over again.”

Over and over? Zack had no recollection of ever seeing anything like this. His body was heavy from exhaustion, but was it because of their fight or something else? Was it a nightmare or reality? It couldn’t be an illusion because all of these details were too accurate. That was for the exception that he saw Sephiroth die by Cloud’s hand. He saw Cloud emerge from the Reactor bleeding from his chest, still struggling to make it back out.

“I am like an insidious virus in the back of your mind. What has transpired in this sleepy village means nothing, only functioning as a cornerstone to the lifetime of agony that you’ve bought yourself.”

He shoved his fingers into Cloud’s entrance, eliciting a barely audible gasp of shock and pain. All of his senses were dulled, so the reaction that had come from him pleased Sephiroth. If Cloud hadn’t been suffering from mako poisoning, there was no doubt he would have been screaming and calling for Zack to help him. Even though this was the case, however, his true mind sought to break out of the coma and beg for his help:

“Z-Za…ck…!” Cloud gasped. Then no other reaction, not as Sephiroth invaded him by pushing his fingers deeper into him. It was as if he were frozen in his grasp, and the mako poisoning was now his sanctuary. “Za…”

“Dammit, Sephiroth, stop doing this to him! If you have a bone to pick, pick it with me! Don’t hurt him!” Zack angrily begged the monster before him.

“Oh, I haven’t begun to hurt him.”

Sephiroth removed his fingers before sliding his prey up on the blade so he was on his knees. Zack knew what he was going to do, and he tried his damnedest to break free of the binds holding him to the chair. Why couldn’t he do anything? Why couldn’t he protect the one he loved?

“Cloud, it’s okay! I’m…I’m coming for you! I’ll be right there for you!” he desperately told him.

“Za…ack…” Cloud uttered. Though his arm felt completely detached from his body, he lifted it, reaching for him and the warm safety of his arms.

Not a moment sooner, Sephiroth impaled him from behind. Nothing but the joy of ruining someone from the inside was on his face like a mask. There was no sound, no screams of terror and agony as he forced himself into Cloud in front of Zack. Holding himself up by the hilt of his sword and coiling his arm around Cloud’s neck so the helpless man could see his expressionless face slowly show how uncomfortable he felt, Sephiroth knew he was getting what he wanted. The two that thought they would just kill him and live peacefully after were going to be scarred for years to come.

“Did you know that everyone knew about you two? How does it feel to see that I can easily claim this one mine and leave my mark on him?” he taunted Zack again.

For the second time in his life, Zack felt an indescribable fear through Sephiroth’s insane gaze. His eyes slowly broke away from the eyes of the beast to the tortured man under him. Lifeless, in a place far away from where they were, Cloud had inadvertently distanced himself. He had to be glad that he couldn’t feel it full force. It was a horrible way to think, but it was the only thing that prevented him from breaking in front of him. He didn’t want to show weakness. But how could he not when Cloud was hurting right there in the grasp of a madman?

“Stop…! Please, stop!” Zack pleaded while fighting back the tears. “He…He only did what he had to do, which was protecting his friends! You’ve hurt so many people, Sephiroth. And you’re hurting more by doing this! Stop with this right now!”

Sephiroth rammed into Cloud out of spite for Zack and everyone that had betrayed him. He chuckled at Zack’s attempt to break him down with insults, and it cost him Cloud’s well-being. What else was there to do? Zack was trapped, and Cloud couldn’t help himself. Then came a sudden moment of clarity, the light returning to Cloud’s eyes but not at all in a good way.

“Z-Zack…I’m scared…!” Cloud said muffled through Sephiroth’s fingers. “It hurts…! Help me…!”

“I-I’m coming…!” Zack reassured him.

“Zack…Zack…! I don’t want this!”

The harder Sephiroth pushed into him, the bigger the wound from the blade became. Cutting deeper and deeper through him, blood dripping down the blade and mixing with sweat and white falling from Cloud’s progressively mangled body. He pushed him back down the blade and clamped his neck down so that Cloud could barely breathe in the ferocity of the moment. He was getting lightheaded and was losing the strength to call out to Zack. It was then that Zack wished he were still under the influence of the mako. At least then the horror would have been lessened.

“You can’t save anyone. You never have,” Sephiroth said to Zack. “You couldn’t save Angeal. You couldn’t save Genesis. And now, you get to watch me rip apart this insignificant bug.”

“Zack…Zack…help…please…” Cloud whimpered. “I can’t take it…this hurts too much…please…” He kept trying to reach out to him even though it was futile.

When Sephiroth finally released him all battered and bloodied, Zack realized that they were no longer in some random room. He had brought them back to the Reactor, Jenova watching over them like some sort of evil goddess smiling down on her harbinger of darkness.

“Through suffering, we all grow stronger,” Sephiroth said. “When the time comes, will it be enough to stop me?”

“What the hell are you talking about? You’re dead…!” Zack yelled at him. But it didn’t matter how loud he spoke to Sephiroth. He was gone, and he was freed from the chair to tend to Cloud. He scrambled to him, his limbs fumbling over each other until he crawled to his side. “Cloud! Cloud, can you hear me?”

“Za…” Cloud uttered. He was no longer there; the fog of the mako poisoning had returned to his clouded mind. All the pain that he had felt radiated through him on a level that he could no longer perceive.

The only thing Zack could do in this hellscape was use his shirt to wipe Cloud’s face of the tears and sweat and spit. Holding him close, the SOLDIER 1st Class wept into his hair. He brought his dearest friend’s trembling hand to his chest, holding it there and rocking him back and forth in an effort to give him some comfort. Or maybe he wanted that for himself. He felt so helpless and weak for not rescuing him or even being able to kill Sephiroth on his own so Cloud wouldn’t have been sucked in the chaos.

“I’m sorry, Cloud,” Zack told him after kissing his head. “I’m so sorry for all this. What kind of guy am I if I can’t protect you? Am I just incapable of saving anyone?” Cloud’s entire body was shaking now. Zack tightened his embrace to abate it despite knowing that the seizure wasn’t something a simple hug could heal. “I saw how scared you were, and…I did nothing…”

He just wanted to sit there and cry with him, but he knew that he needed to get out of there. He had to leave Nibelheim and get a doctor to fix the infantryman. He couldn’t bring himself to stand up, though. Sephiroth had done what he wanted and scarred both of them. They were trapped in that Reactor.

Maybe it was best not to move yet. Cloud hadn’t been in a condition to travel, and now he was injured in such a way that Zack wasn’t sure if he could heal. He wanted to wait for him to stop trembling because then he would stop trembling, too. Zack cupped his hand on his cheek, which brought a single tear to Cloud’s eye. The raven-haired SOLDIER wondered if Cloud hated him now, and he wouldn’t be upset with that because…

_Wake up._

“I can’t…I’m trapped in this nightmare…”

_Wake up, Zack._

“I let him get hurt…”

_You have to keep him safe. Where is your SOLDIER honor?_

“My honor? It’s gone.”

_You wanted to be a hero, right? You can still be his hero._

“I can be…Cloud’s…hero…?”

_Wake up._

“Was this…really just a dream? Does this mean that Cloud is okay?” Zack stared up, the darkness of the reactor melting away into the bright blue sky. He was still holding onto Cloud, who had since calmed down. They were surrounded by white feathers from the wings of an angel. “Cloud…do you think I could have wings, too? Do you think, with those wings, that I could protect you?”

**Author's Note:**

> I wasn't sure how to go about this fic other than the fact that Wicked Games really made me think about Sephiroth and Cloud (even if not in the way intended by the lyrics), but it felt weird to not have it 1) happen as a dream or illusion and 2) not address that Zack feels like he can't save anyone until Angeal gives him some confidence. And even if Zack and Cloud were in comas for four years, Zack still somehow dreamt about Angeal saving him.


End file.
